


20 Random Facts About Sirius Black, as Annotated And Explained By The Man Himself

by leiascully



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-14
Updated: 2010-05-14
Packaged: 2017-10-09 10:57:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/86531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sirius finds a list of lies and libels and some things that are true.</p>
            </blockquote>





	20 Random Facts About Sirius Black, as Annotated And Explained By The Man Himself

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gyzym](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gyzym/gifts).



Tsk tsk, Jamie boy, will you never learn not to leave your secret lists of things lying about in the secret drawer in your desk that you think I haven't discovered? And perhaps that would be true if you hadn't stuck a bit of chocolate in there. Very bad for dogs, yes, but not for Sirius Black, and the nose knows, oh, more than you'd want it to. Therefore, for future generations, I annotate this ridiculous list to set the record straight about Sirius Black, Genius and Lover.

_1.) Sirius—and don't tell him I know about this—used to sing to Harry when he thought I wasn't around. Never nursery rhymes, either...Sinatra, the Beatles, The Who. I've never seen him smile so big as he did when Harry sang "too raa loo raa" to his "Come on Eileen." _

As if I wouldn't notice you nosing about, you nosy Potter. Can I help it if my incredible voice brings everyone running? No, I cannot. At that point, may as well give the kid a chance to have some taste. Please. There's more in the Beatles' catalogue than "I Wanna Hold Your Hand". There is more to life, Prongs, than doo-wop. There's Bob bloody Dylan, for Merlin's sake. There's The Kinks. There's The Who. Left to your own devices, you and Lily would have raised him solely on Folk Music and granola bars. Terrible thing to do to a young lad. Terrible. Had to remedy it somehow. Besides, he was too young to understand the words.

But it was bloody brilliant when Harry started warbling along. He gets that from my side of the family, of course.

_2.) Oh, I tell a lie. I've seen him smile like that once before, but there may have been some tequila involved. Possibly some snogging. Maybe my left nipple…but I don't remember! And I don't want to talk about it! And it didn't happen! But if it had happened, Sirius would have been smiling pretty big. It didn't, though. That's all I'm saying._

Ah, tequila. The best thing that ever came out of Columbus discovering the Americas. Prongsy, I can't believe you can claim not to recall that night of utter, utter bliss. I would have thought the hickeys that lasted two weeks would have been an excellent reminder. I know Lily went absolutely spare when she saw them. Plus there were the photographs that I promised to burn and kept instead in a secret, secret place against future need. I mean blackmail, not wank fodder, you utter berk. Don't flatter yourself.

_3.) He gardens, Sirius does. He was bloody tops in Herbology, and he helped Lily with the tomatoes last summer, and he has a windowbox. With flowers in. I don't really know where we went wrong. _

Oi, Potter, stop making it sound as if being bloody tops in Herbology is a bad thing. It isn't as if I wasn't getting a bit on the side or spending all my time gazing dreamily into stamens and whatnot. After my green thumb touched those tomatoes, you had so many you couldn't give 'em away. I still think you ought to have chucked them at the neighbors.

_4.) That thing in fourth year with the ceiling and McGonagall's underwear was my idea, but he took the detention anyway._

Hah! Merlin, what a classic. Well worth a sesh of trophy polishing. Well worth a _year_ of trophy polishing.

_5.) That thing in fifth year with the third floor corridor and McGonagall's underwear was _his_ idea, and I don't care what anyone says. _

Oi! Have you been taking credit for that in old Filch's files all this while? Potter, I am positively astounded at your cheek. Come now. Stringing dear Minerva's knickers from the ceiling of the Great Hall was, indeed, great, but who saw it? Barely anyone. Nobody looks up when there are kippers and treacle tart to be eaten. It took her hours to even notice. But when you raid her entire collection of clean unmentionables and garland a corridor with them, well, that'll get a woman to notice you.

_6.) He's never liked chips, but he orders heaps of them, because his mother told him they were "nasty, common food" when he was about seven. Usually he makes me eat them._

Good intentions. Good intentions. The first few are all right, when they're still hot, but then they just lie cold and greasy in a pathetic drift of salt, and ugh. They do turn nasty, as much as I hate to admit that my mother was right about anything. I tried to feed them to Remus - Merlin knows he could have used fattening up - but even Peter turned away after the fifth plate, and you, Prongsy, were the only one who would eat them, so don't make it seem as if I forced them down your protesting throat, you delicate blossom. You ate my chips and you liked them, so we'll have none of this pretense that I was stuffing you like a goose destined for foie gras.

Besides, they were bad for my girlish figure. You were already set. It didn't matter what you ate.

_7.) When he was fifteen, he kissed Lily under the mistletoe on Christmas. "She was just _there_," he explained to Remus later, when they thought I was asleep. "I wasn't even thinking about it. I'm such a berk."_

Well, she _was_ there, looking like she ought to be kissed. Couldn't leave her there. But I did feel a right berk about it later. Good thing she knew it wasn't like that. Of course, she didn't tell me so. That would have been too easy. She let me agonize over it for years.

_8.) He still worries I'll find out and hate him for it. STILL. He's really a very unstable man, our Sirius. _

I'll give you unstable, you smug paranoid berk. I knew you knew - as if the hundred times you gazed deep into your precious Lily's eyes and spilled all of our secrets didn't tip me off that it might go the other way. And really, after Remus asked you about it, you ought to have known I knew you knew.

Unstable my arse. Is this what you're telling my godson? Don't listen to him, Harry. I'm stable as the rock of Gibraltar.

_9.) He can never find his footing when he's drunk. Not. Ever. As the person who always has to catch him when he falls down the stairs and lands on my fucking face, I am more than qualified to make this statement. _

Better your face than mine - it can take the rearranging, but my desperately handsome features must remain unscathed. I inherited my poor aim, anyhow, and did it ever occur to you that it wasn't _your_ arms I was trying to fall into? It's just that you're the hero James Potter who had to catch me.

_10.) Sirius thinks—and always has, I might add—that all the girls think he's just dashing. I've tried to convince him otherwise, but his ego is both untouched and, I suspect, untouchable._

Bloody right all the girls think I'm dashing. If you only knew, Prongs, how many hearts Sirius Black has broken over the years. Slander my good name if you wish, but try asking the girls - they'll tell you the truth.

_11.) I've suspected he was gay since our third year; he'd get all weird in the Quidditch showers. I didn't say anything until fifth year, and then I asked him about it. He'd kissed Lily, after all; I had to be sure. He punched me. In the face. In the _fucking face_, like it wouldn't suffer enough damage from him over the years. Bastard. _

Prongs, Prongs, Prongs: any poor sod would get all weird in the Quidditch showers with their best mate peering suspiciously at them. I was doing my best to keep my eyes front, which, in and of itself, was bloody bizarre. Plenty a wandering eye in those showers, and everybody knew it, and it had nothing to do with pouf-dom. Just a healthy curiosity. I was the odd one out for _not_ looking, after I figured it out, but yes, fine, there were days it was a struggle, so thank you for reminding me of that shining moment of adolescence.

As for the punching, it rather improved your face. At least, the big purple bruise caught Lily's eye, didn't it, and required absolutely _hours_ of tender loving care. So really and truly, it all worked out for the best for one James Potter.

_12.) But then he wept like a little girl and confessed his big gay secret and it was HILARIOUS, though of course I was a good friend and patted his back and didn't laugh at the time. I still can't believe he thought I was going to set him on fire over it. I still can't believe he thought I'd _care.

Mate, if you came from my stock, you would have thought it was the end of the world. Utter apocalypse. A Black does not fraternize with Those People. A Black passes on the family name. A Black follows the family motto: Toujours Pur, Jamais Corrumpu. They exiled Andromeda for marrying a Muggle - what do you think they would have done to me for preferring the company of men? It would have been the dungeons or worse if I hadn't left. It was a wonder when you didn't shun me.

_13.) I did set him on fire, though, another time. But that was an accident, no matter what he's told you. I was NOT still angry about the frog he'd left in my bed, I did NOT have my knickers in a twist because he'd told Lily I was a raging maniac and couldn't be helped by man or beast, and I do NOT, as a rule, set people on fire when I am annoyed with them. Often. Anymore. _

What's a little singeing between friends? My eyebrows grew back. Eventually. It got me really good at fireproofing charms, I'll say.

_14.) When he realized he liked Remus he spent a really upsetting amount of time not paying attention to me. Which, I can understand romance as well as the next man, you'll notice I found myself a feisty redhead, but fucking hell, there is only so much hair cream a man can buy, no matter how Noble and Ancient his coffers. _

Oh, well, James, I am so utterly sorry for my heinous neglect of you and your hair and your Head Boy ego. However can I make it up to you? Have the intervening years driven a wedge between us? Are we put asunder for all time?

We'll leave aside the fact that I spent literally _hundreds_ of hours listening to you moan about your feisty redhead like a wet rag. HUNDREDS, Prongsy. And anyhow, I'm surprised that you noticed, having been perma-attached at the hip and/or mouth to your redhead.

Harry, I hope you'll come to realize this nonsense about the hair cream is just utter nonsense. My hair has always been naturally tousled and dashing, and it isn't as if Remus would have cared one whit, which I realized after a week or so of borrowing your da's haircream, which as we know had not worked its purported charms on said redhead. It was Peter who used all of it.

_15.) When he realized Remus liked him back they both spent a really upsetting amount of time making DISGUSTING NOISES in the bed next to mine. It is a punishment I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy, listening to your mates going at it. And if he tells you he put up Silencing Charms, he is lying, because he is a lying liar. _

Pot! Kettle! And again with the slanders! We were so very quiet, like the tiniest of mute mice. And I did put up Silencing Charms, though I may have gotten distracted in the midst of it. And after the number of times the lot of us had to put up with you and Lily, not only in the dorms but in the COMMON ROOM you filthy dog or rutting stag or whatever you are, you deserved it. Fair and square.

If we had many any noises, that is. Which we did not. And if we did, they were disgusting along the lines of "I don't know why it took so long" and a few muffled sighs of happiness. You'll learn about it when you're older, Harry. Never fear.

_16.) The thing with his family—that was really awful. He played it off and I let him, because I knew it was what he wanted, but Merlin. When he first showed up at my door I thought he'd killed someone, he was that miserable. _

Well. They may have been complete and bloody rotters, but they were mine. Even if they were utterly, soddingly wrong about every single part of life, they were mine. So. It wasn't easy to leave, but it would have been harder to stay. I took the coward's way.

_17.) Wasn't as bad as the thing with Moony, though. When he told Snape? I thought he was going to kill himself that time, don't tell him I said that. And then Moony punched him and Wormtail prattled on about—_

That'll come soon enough too. Too soon. Harry, what you must remember is that I was a rotten boy: spoiled, arrogant, manipulative, and with just enough brains and looks to get away with it. I'd been told all my life that the world was my oyster, my kingdom. I was fool enough to believe it. What I did to Remus was inexcusable. What I nearly did to Snape was inexcusable as well. No matter how I loathed the git, he didn't deserve to die or be turned into a werewolf. Frankly, he's awful enough without the fangs.

_18.) Fucking _Wormtail_, Merlin, I nearly forgot. That wasn't Sirius' fault either, but no matter how many times I tell him that, he won't believe me. He's always been like that—he doesn't feel guilty about much, but when he does, he really does._

Huh. I thought I had lost this list. I suppose I never gave it back and Remus packed it away with the rest of my things. He's very diligent, that Moony. Bit of a packrat, which is odd in someone so transient, but there you are. He likes mementos. Sometimes I think that's the only reason he's still with me: I'm a memento of the Sirius Black from Hogwarts. But I'm glad of all of it. At least I'm alive.

You know, reading this list all this time later, I really haven't much to say about that. It's over now. What I want more than anything is to forget that it ever happened. But then again, as old Moody would say, constant vigilance.

_19.) I always, always, always meant for him to have Harry if anything happened to us. Lily did too. Sirius is a stupid shit sometimes but he would have been great; I wish everyday that things had happened differently, for my son's sake as much as his own. _

Well, James, he's mine now, after a fashion, sheltered in my house at any rate. I wanted that too, mate. More than anything. That was all I thought of in that hellhole: how to get Harry out of that situation, and how to care for him.

 

I am a stupid shit. That's true. More than sometimes, less than always. Harry and you and Lily and Remus were the best things to ever happen in my life, but they couldn't teach me not to be a stupid shit.

_20.) Sirius Black—no matter what anyone's said about him, no matter how many times he hung me from the rafters by my underwear first year, no matter how stupid he always has been and always will be—Sirius Black is the best friend any man has ever had, and make no mistake._

Now I'm crying, you stupid sod.

James Potter is the best friend any man could ask for, and better than Sirius Black deserved.


End file.
